Blisters in my hands, action needed

[Zeph]

First off, I had a great day at the range today. I've gone from a heavy slice to a fade last year and this year my aim is hitting those shots dead straight. I know there are two reasons for my fade, when I get those correct the ball goes straight and penetrate the air. It's pretty basic stuff, so any other problems I'll deal with later.

1: I have a slightly outside to inside swing plane.
2: I have a tendency to not release my wrists.

Combine these two and I'm hitting a pretty severe slice if the course is narrow. Open clubface at impact and outside to inside, yey!

So, at the range I first worked on release of the wrists. After a couple of tries I hit it and the ball went 30 meters further with my 5 iron than it did last time I was on the range. This is where solid ball impact is made, no doubt about it. The shot felt great, but had this small fade. I hit some more to get used to the release before I started thinking about my swing pattern. One thing that really helped me was visualising an arc where the club travel. For some reason this made my hands drop down instead of out and making great contact. I got 18 of 20 or so balls going straight and within 5-10 meters. I know working on two things at the same time can be a challenge, but this session was simply to adress the issue and see if I was able to make any headway with my assumptions, which I did.

I also thought about a video lesson from Shawn Clement about whipping the ball. I said inside my head "Ok, up, down and whip!". Gained a couple of meters and this also helped me with the release of my wrists. You can't whip without a release. I'm also a hitter, I tried making some swings focusing on a space outside my left foot. Also something that made the swing much smoother and impact better.

Well, back to why I started this thread. I have had blisters for a while now when playing golf. Not sore ones that annoy me, it's more like the skin is shuffled together at a couple of places. It's primarily the middle finger on my right hand, just below the outmost joint. Also one on the middle finger and one on the left ring finger. These a bit smaller than the one on the right hand. My grip has been a bit loose, and I've read that not releasing your wrists will also cause blisters and wear on the glove. This is something I'm working on and thing I'm making headway.

All the courses around me got range mats, could these take some of the blame? On the turf the clubhead slide nicely through the grass, but on the mat it bounce back.

Anything else you know of that can be the reason?

[DavidFehertysBike]

Toooooo tiiiiiiiight! Loosen the death grip there, buddy. You also find its easier to release the club with a lighter grip. I hold the club just firmly enough to keep it stable throughout the swing, and thats it. If a 10 is squeezing your fingers into a fist so hard that your palm and fingers go white, loosen to a 4 where you only leave a slight imprint on your palm.

I used to have a tendancy to loosen and tighten the grip depending on which part of the swing i was in. (id tighten at the top, loosen, and then tighten again at impact) I was also regripping during the swing and the face angle would change. Death moves. So also be aware of that.

[Zeph]

I saw the video of Shawn about pressure. It should be about 3-4 at adress, but when you swing a normal shot it was impossible not to increase the pressure to withstand the gravity pulling the club. The regripping is something that might be an issue, think I've worked on that before, my grip changing somewhere in the backswing.

Any tips for drills to identify when I'm causing blisters? Hitting with a plastic glove on my hand perhaps, it would rip if the club shifted around. It sounds reasonable that the blisters and my release problems are related. Thanks for the tip, this is definately something I need to work on. The tension and resistance in the club is much smaller when I get through the ball and really release my hands. Just making that change will probably do lots for this problem, but I won't forget the pressure part.

It's going to be a good season I think, I have lots to work on and my swing is better than ever. My shortplay and putting is usually the best part of my game. If I can get the irons on line I'll be playing much more consistently. I playe a round on a difficult course at the end of last season. Played it to my net par, but was not satisfied with my game, too many bad shots, but I saved lots of bogies and some pars with great shortplay.

[DavidFehertysBike]

Well thats good to hear. You can also check out the condition of the grips on your clubs. But i used to have the exact same problem with the blisters that you did. You should have calluses, but not blisters. I had my grip corrected by a teaching pro and I loosened the pressure. The blisters never returned after i made those changes.

[Hidalgo]

Glad to hear that you're getting out there. It's below the freezing mark here.

Are you wearing a glove? If I read your post right, it sounds like you are blistering on the glove hand also? If that is the case, a little baby powder (don't use resin powder) in the glove might help. Blisters are tough to deal with sometimes. We usually either wait until the blisters heal, or wrap a couple of rounds of medical tape on them.

While you're working on the grip pressure, make sure that the club is well down into your fingers and not in the palms.

Keep after it.......it sounds to me like you're on the right path.

[Zeph]

A bit off this topic, but I also made some attempts to draw and fade the ball intentionally. With my old swing it would usually turn into a monstrous slice or mishit, but I actually found that it was helpful to get the correct swing path. I could not rely on the parallell line of the mat and I definately had to release my wrists to avoid and even more open clubface.

Calluses sounds more like what I'm having, that's true. English is not my primary language, so my knowledge in terms of medical words are not that great, but thanks for that note.

I'm wearing a glove, yes, which also wear on the lower part of the glove. I get calluses on the glove hand on two fingers. The club is in my fingers, maybe too far sometimes, I've been trying to keep it even more in my fingers, but I feel like I lose control. Maybe it's just like the swing, takes some time to get comfortable with.

They are not hurting at all, so I have never had to put tape on them. This is probably because they are calluses and not blisters. I never had a problem playing with them, they're just sort of always there during the season. Disappeared over the winter, but came back after many rounds on the simulator.

I don't think the grip is that bad, but there are some smaller details that probably could be altered. It looks like it should, I've asked different pros about, they say it looks fine, but it's hard to see. It's like weight shift, you can't see on a person if the weight is on the right or left side if they stand still, you can't see inside a grip either. Especially not during a swing. So it's pretty much just practice and testing that will work for me. Since they don't become blisters, the steps needed to get rid of them may also be smaller. The wrist release is a good start. I also notice it very well when I don't release on the range mats, they are horrible to hit if I don't release my wrists. Club, hands and ball bumping everywhere. When I do get proper release, the mats doesn't feel as hard and it feels much better in my hands.

As my second session this year I'm pretty satisfied. It's still a bit cold, temperature around 5-10ºC, but when the sun is up, it's pretty nice. Still need to use wool underneath though, I learned from an older golfer once that keeping warm is very important. He wore wool almost the year around, except maybe for the hottest days. He's had some injuries, so for him it's even more important, I don't wear wool on the summer, but I'm thinking twice about tossing my sweater after he gave me that tip. I've had a habit of taking off too much clothes, but that has stopped. I now rather sweat some than let my body get cold. Really helps when playing and practicing. Pretty self-explanatory that your swing won't perform as well when the body is cold.

[kinchu007]

Reviving an old thread...


I just started using Mizuno MP-60 irons and having the same exact problem as you...blisters everywhere! My right hand is a mess.

To be honest, I just started playing regularly again 2 months ago...driving range 3 days a week, short course (par 3) 2 days a week.

I think it has to do with the fact that if you mis-hit these "game enhancement" clubs your hands/wrist/back all suffer much more than they would with a "game improvement" club like the kind I was using before the Mizunos.

One thing I have considered is getting larger/thicker wraps...I have always used thick grips on my tennis racquets with great results, so am thinking same would apply to golf if you have bigger hands or longer fingers than most?

I have been a casual golf player for over a decade, but I'm ready to really start working on my game, so hopefully the blisters are just temporary.

-Fil

[jambalaya]

If you are hitting hundreds of balls a week, that would have a tendency to create blisters. Kind if interesting you seem to be getting blisters on the middle fingers. I don't think I have ever had blisters there. Usually more on the outside fingers. When I truly learned how to grip the club in the fingers i dramtically reduced the possibility of blisters. But if I went out to the range and hit 300 balls, I might get a blister somewhere.

[Zeph]

Don't have this problem anymore. I think it was primarily a change in grip pressure and possibly the grip itself along with less wrist action that did it.

Can hit hundreds of balls today and not have any problems with it. Only place I have a small one today is the middle part of my long finger, but it's barely noticeable.